01-08-2018, 02:42 PM
(01-07-2018, 12:47 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: There's another significant paragraph in that Cuban government
statement that I hadn't sufficiently noticed before:
Government of Cuba Wrote:> A matter of singular importance is the salary. We must
> reinvigorate the socialist principle of distribution, to pay to
> each according to the quantity and quality of work
> provided.
That's a total lie. The Socialist Principle Of Distribution is "From
each according to abilities, to each according to needs." Quantity
and quality of work are irrelevant. Nobody is going to claim that
Socialist leaders are ever honest, even about Socialism.
Even a slave-master can achieve "from each according to his abilities" (granted that the master must make sure that the slave not learn enough to think slavery wrong or figure out how to escape....) and fulfill the most basic needs. Food, minimal shelter, and protection from the elements. To get enough work from the slave, use the lash 'generously'. Plantation, Gulag, or KZ-lager, the same principle applies.
The real trick is to get people to enhance their abilities so that they can be something other than raw labor (as is the norm for the slave), and that implies giving people more than their animal needs. Such is a reward for career specialization, deference to the boss and customers, integrity, enhanced effort, innovation, investment, and of course the development of personal skills.
In Marx' day many people were not getting their survival needs... as after they got sick or injured. "To each according to their needs" is a minimum of decency.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
